Bangkok, Thailand
This was my least favorite of all the cities visited. It's basically a dirtier and less developed version of any other big city, like NY or LA. There's not much to do there, maybe a few temples to check out, but by this point we were tired of walking around and it was incredibly hot and humid. I'm sure it would have been a different experience if we had locals to take us to fun places or knew our way around.
We did stop by the Grand Palace/Wat Phra Kaeo and checked out the giant Reclining Buddha at Wat Pho. But that's about as touristy as we got. The rest of the time was spent hanging out at the hotel pool or checking out the malls in the area. They have an incredibly nice mall called the Siam Paragon. Great food court on the bottom level. We spent at least an hour just walking around and trying different foods. Yum!
Oh, how could I forget. We also stopped by the Chatuchak weekend market on Sunday. This place is nuts! It's incredibly crowded with people and huge! It was an unhappy experience - it was hot and humid when we went, we got lost inside the complex and it took us at least an hour to find the area that we were looking for. The majority of the vendors didn't understand any english, no one had a map, and the people that did understand some english didn't know their way around the shopping area so I highly advise anyone going to the market to bring a map.
It was also in Bangkok that I felt like I was getting ripped off for being a tourist. This is the only city where I really felt like they were taking advantage of us. The taxis at the airport definitely were trying to pull one over. We were charged almost twice the going rate because there were four of us and we needed a minivan to fit all our luggage even though the taxi was the same as any other in the queue outside the airport. If we had been randomly assigned the minivan based on where we were in the line, I'm willing to bet there wouldn't have been an extra charge. Also, there was a driver that said he would "take care of us" and only charge us 300 baht to get to our hotel. We insisted numerous times that he turn on the meter instead. He finally did and the ride ended up costing 100 baht. So definitely be wary of the cab drivers over there.
All in all though, Bangkok was a good experience. Had some good food, relaxed a bit, enjoyed the nightlife, etc. You just have to stay on your toes...
We did stop by the Grand Palace/Wat Phra Kaeo and checked out the giant Reclining Buddha at Wat Pho. But that's about as touristy as we got. The rest of the time was spent hanging out at the hotel pool or checking out the malls in the area. They have an incredibly nice mall called the Siam Paragon. Great food court on the bottom level. We spent at least an hour just walking around and trying different foods. Yum!
Oh, how could I forget. We also stopped by the Chatuchak weekend market on Sunday. This place is nuts! It's incredibly crowded with people and huge! It was an unhappy experience - it was hot and humid when we went, we got lost inside the complex and it took us at least an hour to find the area that we were looking for. The majority of the vendors didn't understand any english, no one had a map, and the people that did understand some english didn't know their way around the shopping area so I highly advise anyone going to the market to bring a map.
It was also in Bangkok that I felt like I was getting ripped off for being a tourist. This is the only city where I really felt like they were taking advantage of us. The taxis at the airport definitely were trying to pull one over. We were charged almost twice the going rate because there were four of us and we needed a minivan to fit all our luggage even though the taxi was the same as any other in the queue outside the airport. If we had been randomly assigned the minivan based on where we were in the line, I'm willing to bet there wouldn't have been an extra charge. Also, there was a driver that said he would "take care of us" and only charge us 300 baht to get to our hotel. We insisted numerous times that he turn on the meter instead. He finally did and the ride ended up costing 100 baht. So definitely be wary of the cab drivers over there.
All in all though, Bangkok was a good experience. Had some good food, relaxed a bit, enjoyed the nightlife, etc. You just have to stay on your toes...
posted by KC at
1:13 AM
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